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New lines in terminal

I am learning to use dar from the command line. My dar command is 3 lines long full width of the monitor. Is there a character sequence to insert between commands so that my 3 lines can be broken into more lines? A simple return causes the command not to run.

I searched on line length, man terminal, but was unable to locate what I am looking for.

What I have (example):

-X "*.*.dar" -X "*.jpg" --create /darbu -s 650M -y -v -Z "*.mp3" -Z "*.avi" -Z "*.mpg" -Z "*.mpeg" -Z "*.divx" -Z "*.rm" -Z "*.wmv" -Z "*.wma" -Z "*.asf" -Z "*.ra" -Z "*.gif" -Z "*.jpg" -Z "*.jpeg" -Z "*.png" -Z "*.zip" -Z "*.tgz" -Z "*.gzip" -Z "*.bzip" -Z "*.bzip2" -Z "*.rar" -Z "*.Z" --fs-root / -g home/mike/Desktop/autodealer --prune home/mike/tmp

What I would like:

-X "*.*.dar" -X "*.jpg" --create /darbu -s 650M -y -v
-Z "*.mp3" -Z "*.avi" -Z "*.mpg" -Z "*.mpeg" -Z "*.divx" -Z "*.rm"
-Z "*.wmv" -Z "*.wma" -Z "*.asf" -Z "*.ra" -Z "*.gif" -Z "*.jpg"
-Z "*.jpeg" -Z "*.png" -Z "*.zip" -Z "*.tgz" -Z "*.gzip" -Z "*.bzip"
-Z "*.bzip2" -Z "*.rar" -Z "*.Z"
--fs-root /
-g home/mike/Desktop/autodealer
--prune home/mike/tmp

But there needs to be a break of some type at the end of each line, and it cannot be a carriage return. Any suggestions on search topics?

mg92865

If you put a backslash \ at the end of the line (with no spaces after it), tyu can continue to enter a command on a new line,. e.g.

Code:

echo this is a long command which has \

been split over more than one line

The added \ solved the problem

Hello,

Thank you for the prompt response. Adding the \ solves my
problem.

I have not seen this. I looked for a man terminal page but none
exists on my system. What would I have searched on to find
more on the terminal or the use of "\" in terminal.

Thanks,

mg92865

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthewg42 (Post 2997349)

If you put a backslash \ at the end of the line (with no spaces after it), tyu can continue to enter a command on a new line,. e.g.

Code:

echo this is a long command which has \

been split over more than one line

How do you insert a newline into the terminal without putting it in a script or copy and paste?

Quote:

Originally Posted by fakie_flip (Post 4816651)

How do you insert a newline into the terminal without putting it in a script or copy and paste?

Like this:

Code:

echo -e "foo bah\nbaz"

The '-e' flag tells echo to expand newlines, among other things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mg92865 (Post 2997973)

I looked for a man terminal page but none
exists on my system.

This is not a "terminal" question, it's a shell syntax one. You need to look in your bash man page, or whatever other shell you use as the default.

Here are a few useful bash references for you:
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide
http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/start
http://www.linuxcommand.org/index.php
http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/scripting/newbie_traps
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ
http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-G...tml/index.html
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/index.html
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html
http://ss64.com/bash/

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snark1994 (Post 4816682)

Like this:

Code:

echo -e "foo bah\nbaz"

The '-e' flag tells echo to expand newlines, among other things.

No, in the command, not the output.

Quote:

echo this is a long command which has \
been split over more than one line

I'm not entirely clear what you're asking here, but as above, the syntax of *nix shells is such that a newline is assumed to be the end of a cmd UNLESS you append a '\' at the physical end of the line.

You can print out '\n' if you want to see a new line, and echo can explicitly insert a newline as above or append (-n) instead of (default) putting a newline
eg

Code:

echo -en "foo bah\nbaz"

foo bah

Quote:

Originally Posted by fakie_flip (Post 4816651)

How do you insert a newline into the terminal without putting it in a script or copy and paste?

Press enter, if the shell knows that command isn't finished (because of a backslash or unclosed quote) it will prompt for more input after the newline:

Code:

~/tmp$ echo this is a long command which has \

> been split over more than one line

this is a long command which has been split over more than one line

You can see on the second line the prompt is ">", the value of $PS2.

Thank you ntubski. That's what I was looking for.